Ian Fleming's most popular books ranked - From Russia with Love is No. 2

Before Daniel Craig or Sean Connery were gracing screens and walking on red carpets of film premieres, James Bond was already a household name in print.

In 1953, former naval intelligence officer Ian Fleming sat down at his typewriter in Jamaica's Goldeneye estate and typed out what would become Casino Royale - the literary birth of 007.

Fleming would go on to write 12 full-length Bond novels and two short story collections between 1953 and 1966, helping shape the Cold War imagination of the British spy.

Taking a closer look at the author's page on Goodreads - the world's largest book-rating platform - we can have a clear idea of which Fleming books have been read and rated the most.

With reader counts in the tens of thousands, these are the ten most popular James Bond novels:

10. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

15,264 ratings

Although it's a world away from Bond's martinis and Walther PPKs, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is Ian Fleming's most charming departure. Published in 1964, two years before his death, the book was written for his son Caspar and follows the eccentric Commander Pott and his family as they discover a magical car with a mind of its own. While Fleming only wrote the first instalment, its whimsical energy captured imaginations and inspired the 1968 film starring Dick Van Dyke.

9. Thunderball (James Bond #9)

17,824 ratings

By 1961, the Bond franchise had already grown beyond books. Thunderball, the ninth novel, marked the beginning of Bond's legal entanglements, as it originated from a failed screenplay collaboration between Fleming and producer Kevin McClory. The novel introduces the criminal organisation SPECTRE and its icy leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld - both of whom would become central to the Bond mythos. Set largely in the Bahamas, Thunderball follows Bond as he investigates the hijacking of two nuclear warheads.

8. On Her Majesty's Secret Service (James Bond #11)

21,611 ratings

Bond gets married in this one, and that alone makes On Her Majesty's Secret Service stand out. Published in 1963, this eleventh entry in the series is one of the most emotionally complex, as Bond falls in love with and marries Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo - only to lose her in a shocking twist. The story continues the Blofeld saga, with Bond pursuing the villain to a mountaintop lair in the Swiss Alps. Its ending helped give the 1969 film adaptation lasting cult status, and the novel is often cited for showing Bond's rare vulnerability.

7. Diamonds Are Forever (James Bond #4)

23,852 ratings

Set in the underworld of Las Vegas and American gangland, Diamonds Are Forever (1956) takes Bond out of Europe and into the U.S. criminal circuit. Sent to infiltrate a diamond smuggling ring, Bond encounters gangsters, horse racing scams, and the alluring Tiffany Case - a complex Bond girl who's more than just a sidekick. Fleming drew heavily from his research trip to Nevada, and the result is a detail-rich story filled with sweat and suspicion.

6. Doctor No (James Bond #6)

25,273 ratings

Doctor No (1958) gave the Bond franchise some of its most iconic imagery, from a tarantula in bed to a villain with metal claws for hands. After the murder of a fellow MI6 agent, Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the reclusive Dr. Julius No, who is operating a mysterious island base. It's the first book to show Bond in the Caribbean - a setting that would become a staple of both the novels and the films.

5. Goldfinger (James Bond #7)

27,297 ratings

Published in 1959, Goldfinger saw Fleming fully embrace the grandiose villains and outlandish plots that would define later Bond stories. Auric Goldfinger plans to contaminate the U.S. gold reserve at Fort Knox, and along the way, Bond plays golf, gets captured more than once, and meets Pussy Galore, a pilot with a sharp tongue and sharper instincts.

4. Moonraker (James Bond #3)

29,770 ratings

Fleming's third Bond novel stays entirely within Britain's borders. Moonraker (1955) introduces Sir Hugo Drax, a millionaire industrialist with suspiciously perfect manners and a mysterious German past. Bond is tasked with investigating Drax, who is building a nuclear missile supposedly meant to defend the UK. What unfolds is a classic spy-versus-spy narrative involving card cheating, cyanide, and Cold War subterfuge.

3. Live and Let Die (James Bond #2)

34,974 ratings

Released in 1954, Live and Let Die is Fleming's second novel, and it amps up the action significantly. Bond travels from Harlem to Florida and then to Jamaica in pursuit of Mr. Big, a gangster and SMERSH operative using voodoo legends to control his empire. The novel introduces Felix Leiter, Bond's CIA counterpart, who suffers a gruesome injury that would haunt him throughout the series. Fleming's depiction of African-American culture has aged poorly, but the book is a fast-paced thriller with high stakes and vivid settings.

2. From Russia with Love (James Bond #5)

37,534 ratings

Fleming himself considered From Russia with Love (1957) one of his best works, and JFK agreed - the U.S. President famously listed it among his ten favourite books. The story begins in Moscow, where Soviet agency SMERSH plots to assassinate Bond as an act of propaganda. Their weapon is a beautiful cipher clerk named Tatiana Romanova and a British decoding device she claims to be defecting with. Much of the story unfolds aboard the Orient Express, where Bond's encounter with the brutal Red Grant is one of the series' most suspenseful chapters.

1. Casino Royale (James Bond #1)

91,551 ratings

With more than double the ratings of any other Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953) has the crown of the most-read - and perhaps most essential - book in the series. In it, Bond is tasked with bankrupting Le Chiffre, a French communist paymaster, at the baccarat table in Royale-les-Eaux. But the mission spirals into torture, betrayal, and tragedy. Bond meets Vesper Lynd, falls in love, and is left reeling by the realisation that she was a double agent. It's raw, stylish, and also launched one of the greatest spy sagas of all time.